You know what they say: “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”
That holds true on LinkedIn.
If you’re going to create a positive impression on your potential customers to increase sales, it all starts with your LinkedIn profile and the actions you make with it.
LinkedIn is one of the most important social platforms to connect with people who you might want to do business with.
People tend to make the same mistakes and then give up right after giving it a try.
So what’s the strategy to not make those mistakes anymore?
Knowing what not to do on LinkedIn is just as important as knowing how to do it right.
Here are a few common LinkedIn sales mistakes you might want to avoid when promoting your business on LinkedIn.
1. Profile Not Being Up-to-Date or Complete
LinkedIn is a professional networking platform, so your profile needs to represent your professional side.
The summary section’s incomplete or inaccurate information can only confuse your potential prospects.
You might think that a little bit of information goes a long way, but in fact, incomplete profiles are worse than no profile at all.
Solution:
A good rule of thumb is to keep your profile up-to-date with current information, such as your headline, social media accounts, and website links.
Ensure to include descriptions of your key strengths and accomplishments, links to articles that feature your work, or any relevant awards or honors showcasing your achievements.
This way, people can easily access more information about you and your products or services.
2. Not Doing the Research Before Connecting With Prospects
Many salespeople often make mistakes that can cost them and their company a lot of money.
The most common mistake is not doing the research before connecting with prospects.
For example, if your connection is a web developer, he probably won’t need any web development services.
Or if he owns an advertising agency, he probably doesn’t need advertising agency services.
This mistake can waste time, energy, and resources and can lead to missed opportunities.
It’s much better to connect with someone and spend time talking with someone who might be valuable to you in the future, right?
Solution:
The best way to avoid this common mistake is to do detailed research about your potential connections.
A great method that can help you save a lot of time is by using the LinkedIn Boolean search feature on LinkedIn.
You can use the LinkedIn Boolean search features to find people based on various characteristics, such as industry, role, location, etc.
This will help you make sure that your prospect is someone who might be interested in your company’s products or services.
3. Sending Too Many Connection Requests
If you’re just starting out with LinkedIn or don’t have much experience with it, it’s tempting to send connection requests to as many people as possible to build up your network quickly.
Poorly written LinkedIn messages, for example, can be a turnoff for sales prospects.
The same goes for sending too many connection requests.
It can easily come across as spammy or desperate — and probably result in most people never accepting your request anyway.
Solution:
A good way to avoid this is by being selective about who you connect with.
Don’t send connection requests to everyone you’ve ever met or worked with.
Instead, choose people who are most likely to be interested in your business’s products or services.
Or someone who might be valuable as a connection and with whom you can share valuable thoughts.
4. Not Including a Message Within a Connection Request
LinkedIn makes it very easy to connect with other users, but many people don’t realize that they have the option of including a message when they send their request.
This is an important part of the LinkedIn relationship-building process because it lets you introduce yourself and get to know each other before you start communicating
In fact, simply connecting with someone without any kind of introduction can seem like spam and make someone suspicious about your intentions.
If there’s no message attached, it looks like you’re just trying to boost your numbers instead of engaging with potential buyers and sellers.
Which can result in a lot of requests being rejected.
So how to reverse that?
Solution:
If you want your request to be accepted, it needs to have a personal touch — especially if you’re reaching out to someone who doesn’t know you yet!
Don’t send generic messages like ‘I saw your profile and thought we should connect.’
Instead, try sending a personalized message explaining how you found them and what interests you about their profile.
Make sure to use their name and mention any common interests or professional connections that you share with them.
This shows that you’ve done some research into them and helps establish a connection before even connecting and asking for anything from them.
5. Not Following Up on a Connection Request
One of the most popular types of LinkedIn activity is connecting with people you don’t know.
This can be a great way to build your network, but it can also be one of the most frustrating things about using LinkedIn.
If you send someone an invitation and they don’t connect back, there’s no way to tell if they’re just busy or if they’re not interested in connecting with you at all.
Don’t give up after sending one request.
Instead, follow up by sending another message with a few more details about yourself and your company.
People often forget about their pending requests, so why not remind them of them?
Solution:
The best way to avoid this mistake is to follow up after a few days with an email or direct message asking if anything was preventing them from connecting.
You can send something like:
I know you’re super busy, so just wanted to make sure your connection requests didn’t get flooded covering my message. The thing is, I really think we can be valuable connections for each other, and I was wondering if there’s a way to connect with you. Have an awesome and productive day.
{{your name}}
6. Making Your Approach and Messages Impersonal
In an attempt to be friendly and personable, many salespeople send generic messages like “Hi there” or “How’s it going?”
But those messages rarely get read or responded to.
And sending this same message to everyone in your LinkedIn connections list is just wrong.
Solution:
The key is to ensure that every message you send is personalized in some way — even if it’s just mentioning something specific from their profile or social posts.
Making sure it’s unique to them will create a deeper connection and help you with future actions.
Pro tip: To make your approach more personal and have all the information about your connections in one place where LeadDelta can help you.
Using the power of its LinkedIn sidebar can help you access any information you collected about them when necessary.
By default, it will show you all the essential information about your 1st-degree connection, and you can even add tags and notes collected along the way.
Let’s say you just talked with your prospects and found out what alternatives they used in the past.
To note that down, just enter your prospects’ profile, and after the sidebar pops up, click “Add notes” button.
Enter the information that might be valuable for you in the future, and after you’re done, hit “Save.”
It will instantly get synced with the database, so anytime you enter the LeadDelta dashboard, you’ll be able to see all the information you entered.
7. Not Providing Value to Your Connections
While it’s great to get yourself known in your industry, overdoing it by posting too many ads or self-promotional content will turn off potential clients.
Resulting in low sales and many of them deleting you from their connections.
If you want to sell on LinkedIn, you have to be willing to give value first.
Solution:
The more value you provide, the more likely people will trust you and want to do business with you.
But don’t just do it once, or they’ll forget who you are.
You have to provide value regularly.
Here are some ways that can help:
1. Share helpful articles and insights from experts in your field with your connections.
2. Comment on their posts and engage with them in discussions where appropriate, like in response threads or group discussions.
3. Send them your thoughts on how they can improve their business, without promoting yourself at all.
8. Not Taking Time to Network
Networking is essential to your success as a salesperson, whether it’s face-to-face or online.
According to statistics, 80% percent of sales professionals say networking is the most effective way for them to find new leads.
Salespeople often think they can just go through the motions — send an email or two each week and then move on to something else.
But LinkedIn networking takes time, effort, and energy.
If you’re going to do it right, then you need to commit a certain amount of time every week (or month) to building relationships with people who can be interested in your offer.
If you don’t network, then you’ll be at the mercy of your current customer base and any new leads that come through your door.
Solution:
Instead, focus on building up a strong group of contacts interested in what you offer and build relationships with them.
Conclusion
Avoiding these common LinkedIn sales mistakes will help you win more business through social selling efforts on LinkedIn.
These mistakes can be avoided with good habits and new tools such as LeadDelta.
With a LeadDelta social capital manager, you’ll be more productive by viewing and organizing your network in the best way it suits your needs.
It’s time to stop with overloaded inboxes, feeds, and screaming notifications, but rather focus on building relationships.
Download LeadDelta extension and improve your LinkedIn connections game.
